Crazy Easy Pan-Fried Plantain Patties

Confession: I’ve been a little plantain-crazy lately.

I eat them all the time. And it’s no wonder – they taste amazing and they’re easy to prepare…particularly when you have a crazy easy recipe like these plantain patties.

It takes mere minutes to prep and fry up some plantain patties, and I guarantee you they make an excellent addition to almost any meal. Except – maybe – pizza.

At my Natural Grocers cooking demo last Saturday, I went on a 15 minute spiel about how amazing plantains were…and none of my recipes actually used plantains. That was a teensy bit embarrassing.

But it did give me a great idea for another demo to do in the future: “All the Amazing Shit You Can Make with Plantains”. Might have to work on the title, but considering the audience response to my plantain rant, I’d say it would be a popular topic.

There was a little girl who gleefully showed me the plantains she ran out and bought after the demo was over. I hope she liked them!

The demo itself went as well as can be expected. I was nervous, but once I got to talking the nerves eased up a bit.

I’m very happy that the audience was willing to chat with me. I now have gratuitous amounts of respect for those who do this kind of thing on a regular basis.

Yes, it’s not necessarily hard to talk in front of crowds, but the feeling of talking at people rather than with them really gets to me. I like instantaneous feedback, and it’s hard to decode nonverbal feedback when you’re talking to a crowd.

So early on in the demo, I invited any and all questions. I prodded the crowd by asking them questions, and told them they could interrupt me at any time.

It worked pretty well! And they laughed at my jokes. And clapped for me at one point when I talked about self-love. That as pretty cool.

I did make one mistake though. I had been 100% sure that the dates I used for the Thai Curry Chicken Wings were seedless (I’ve only ever bought seedless dates, so it really didn’t cross my mind).

When I turned on the blender, someone asked if there were still seeds in the dates, and I dismissed the notion because the loud noises from the blender were so familiar to me – it’s always sounded like that.

After the demo, I discovered there were seeds in the dates. I felt terrible. It is what it is.

Ingredients

Instructions

Peel the plantain and place in a medium-sized bowl. Ripe and over-ripe plantains should peel much easier than green plantains, so it shouldn’t be too much effort to peel it. Using a fork, mash the plantain.

Add the tapioca flour and cinnamon to the mashed plantain, mixing well. You’ll want to make sure there are no large chunks of plantain, but small chunks are just fine.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add a couple tablespoons of your favorite cooking fat and allow it to get hot.

Using 2-3 tablespoons for each patty, drop the plantain mixture into the skillet and fry for about 2 minutes on each side or until lightly browned.

I'm Chelsea, the author behind Do You Even Paleo! I believe life should be full of flavor. I enjoy creating recipes that are nourishing, flavorful, and satisfying. When not experimenting in the kitchen, I usually have a camera, barbell, or mug of coffee in hand.
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I hope you try it, Karen! I think a savory patty might need more testing (ripe yellow & overripe brown plantains mash up nicely with a fork, but green plantains would not), but now you’ve got me interested to test it out. To the kitchen!

Green plantains are the best. My favorite is the BOLON. Use green plantains. Peel them, cut them small, boil them, then smash them (it has to be fast so they do not get hard), add butter, salt, queso fresco in crumbles (you can use mozarella cheese too), chicharron (use bacon if you do not have chicharron), mix everything and then make medium size balls. You can eat them like that. Try little diferent, instead of boiling the plantain you could fry them and then smash them, this is a little harder, in my country people use thick gloves and smash them with hands. And that is bolon. We also have tortas de verde, boil the green plantains, smash them, add butter, salt, make them like balls and inside of them put cheese, then make them a little flat like an arepa. Bring them to the pan, you will fry them just so both sides are a little crusty. Oh my God I just love plantain.

That sounds amazing! Where I live (North Dakota), the plantains that are shipped here are almost always past the green stage, so most recipes I come up with use over-ripe plantains. I would love to get my hands on some green plantains to try out your suggestions!

Hey Lucia, I’m sorry the recipe gave you trouble! I made these just last night and I have a couple tips. First, you’ve got to use enough ghee/butter/cooking fat…enough so that there’s about a half inch in the bottom of the pan (otherwise, they’ll stick and it will be extremely hard to flip them). I use a very small skillet so I’m not wasting a lot of oil. Then, you can’t flip them too early or they’ll fall apart, similar to flipping an egg too early. If the patties are too thick, they won’t cook in the middle and will turn out mushy. The last factor that’s hardest to control is how ripe the plantains are. If they’re too over-ripe and too close to just being rotten, this recipe won’t turn out right. Hopefully that helps if you choose to try the recipe again. I’ve often thought about updating this post with step-by-step pictures, and I think I need to get my butt in gear and do that soon!

Hi Ysabelle! You can use arrowroot flour as an alternative to the tapioca flour. As mentioned in the post, I did try this recipe without any flours or starches added at all (just plantains), and while it works with just the plantains, they do stay together better and have a superior texture (in my opinion) with the flour.

Sorry it took so long to respond to your comment; I was on vacation! Thanks for stopping by!

Hi Mary! Thanks for stopping by. I’ve never tried freezing them, so I’m not sure how that would turn out! I have, however, frozen brown plantains before. Similar to frozen bananas, they were kind of goopy after thawing. But they worked for this recipe!

Omg yes we are so on the same wavelength with plantains. Definitely my favourite food ever! Honestly, I already know this recipe is awesome! Public speaking can be daunting though – glad you got through it! 🙂Whitney recently posted…Banana Ice-Cream and Apple Butter Parfait

I made these tonight with arrowroot. My plantain was still a bit firm, so I threw it in the food processor with the arrowroot and it worked nicely. I loved these, and I was thinking if I could figure out a way to make them bigger and flatter, they would make a great substitute for a tortilla, soft taco shell, or pita bread. Looking forward to further experiments! Thank you for the recipe!

I really want to try this. All of your revipes look so good but Do think u need to work on that title for the Plantain demo. Not really appropriate. this 68 year old granny thinks it’s the shock factor for young people to use profanity where you aren’t expecting it.

I typically make these on nights that I’m in a rush, so they get served with quick-to-prepare meals like cracklin’ chicken (see nomnompaleo.com for the recipe), pulled pork, or fish plus whatever vegetable I happen to have on hand to roast. Thanks for stopping by, Jessica!

Sorry to hear that, Kody. I’ve never used rice flour so I’m not sure if it’s a reasonable substitute for tapioca starch…but I will say this recipe is finicky and it’s one I’ve been meaning to revisit and possibly improve upon. I sometimes have trouble with these, too – if the patties are too large or the plantains are too overripe, they don’t stay together well.

Hi Chelsea! I made these tonight and mine are tasty but a disaster. My plantain was very big and maybe my flour measurement wasn’t correct. What consistency should the batter be? Mine was pretty thin but held in a heap. I used coconut oil in a cast iron pan and they stuck to the bottom. Good news – I served with a choice of topper – fruit combo of dragon fruit, mango and kiwi…or guacamole to see which was better (just me and hubby). This was a side to marinated skirt steak. It was delish…just need to nail the cooking.

These can be really finicky. I’ve had trouble with them before in the past, I’ll admit! The ripeness of the plantains can make a big difference in the consistency…too ripe, and they stick easily. Not enough oil, and they stick easily. I’m thinking I’ll retake pictures soon so show the steps and the right consistency! They should be kind of like a mash – not too liquidy. I know you’re not the only one who’s had trouble, and since this recipe is so popular I’m going to revisit it soon.

Hi! I’m Andrea from Puerto Rico! We do something similar to you recipe over here, specially with green plantains. We peal them, cut them, fry them, turn them into well, how you call it, patties (we call them tostones), fry them once more and go crazy with garlic and mayo ketchup… If you want to save for later then just fry once and smash it with a can or something, save in ziplock and freeze it, then just take out whenever you feel like it and fry! Tastes awesome. With yellow plantaines well like you said, its so much easier to peel and cut however you want and fry. Mmmm love them cause they are so sweet! God I love food! Anyways, thank you so much for your post cause I think its great!!

Well thank you for stopping by, Andrea! Tostones are another favorite of mine…I’ve never tried freezing them before the second fry! I’m definitely going to have to give that a try. Thank you for the tip!

OMG, I have to try these! I’m an adopted Puerto Rican living in Orlando, so you know that plantains are like a food group to me. I am especially nuts about “amarillos” (“yellows” as we refer to the ripe ones). Their botanical name is musa paradisiaca, muse of paradise… so fitting!

That’s so fascinating! Thanks for teaching me a little more about plantains. They’re seriously my favorite food. Unfortunately, they’re hard to find in North Dakota! I’d move to the southern states just to get better access to plantains! Thanks for stopping by, Yvette – let me know how the plantain patties turn out!

I have been making a morning pancake with a regular banana and egg, to which I add spinach and berries in the blender. The greener bananas make a pancake with a more “normal” pancake texture, while the yellower ones make something more like a crepe or custard. It’s hard to find bananas green enough, though, so I’m going to try adding tapioca flour to my breakfast pancake.

I came to this page looking for plantain patties in hopes of finding something that would work as a pizza crust. I’m going to do some experimenting and get back to you on that. Thanks for the ideas!

I LOVE this recipe. I am doing a modified (and more strict) version of the Autoimmune Protocol and I just wanted something easy and quick to make that satisfied that craving for something carby and bread-like. I’ve tried multiple recipes with plantains and this was by FAR the quickest and easiest, not to mention really delicious with the cinnamon. I will definitely make these again. Oh and I used avocado oil as the oil/fat and it worked really well!

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About Me:

Hello! I'm Chelsea, the author, recipe developer, and photographer behind DoYouEvenPaleo. Life should be full of flavor, and I've made it my mission to bring you recipes and lifestyle advice that do just that. I feel best when I follow a Paleo template, so that's what I tend to do (but frankly, I'm not perfect)!
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